SEA-MIN Grades: Seahawks destroy Vikings

Here are the top takeaways and highest-graded players from the Seahawks’ 38-7 win over the Vikings.

Minnesota Vikings

– It was a rough day for pretty much every Vikings’ player, as none of them finished with a grade greater than +1.0. In fact, on offense, there was not a single player who got a positive grade. Many people wondered if QB Teddy Bridgewater (-2.0) would be good enough to lead his team to victory if a team was able to stop HB Adrian Peterson (-0.4). Well the Seahawks stopped Peterson, and unfortunately, Bridgewater was unable to get much going. Continuing a season-long trend, Bridgewater rarely attempted a deep pass, and when he did, he was mostly inaccurate. On passes over 10 yards in the air, Bridgewater was just 2 of 7 for 35 yards and an interception.

– There were two lone bright spots on the Vikings defense, although even these were not that bright. DE Brian Robison (+0.9) finished with a +1.6 pass rush grade, thanks to two sacks and three hurries, as well as a couple of other good pass rush plays. DT Sharrif Floyd (+0.2) also had one of only a few positive grades, finishing with a +1.9 in his run defense grade. He made three solo stops and had some good disruptive plays all game. However, he failed to record a single pressure in 24 pass rush attempts.

– The offensive line had a tough game, as all five starters finished with a negative pass block grade. G Brandon Fusco (-1.7) struggled the most in that regard, allowing a sack, a hit and two hurries en route to a team-low -2.6 pass block grade. T Matt Kalil (-2.5) finished with the lowest overall grade among them, as he allowed two hits and two hurries and was also beaten frequently in the run game. As a unit, the Vikings allowed three sacks, five hits and nine hurries. While nobody else on the offense was able to do anything really positive, the line deserves a lot of blame for poor play yesterday.

Seattle Seahawks

– Offensively, this game was all about Seahawks’ QB Russell Wilson (+7.2). He was incredibly effective throwing the ball, especially when it came to deep throws. He attempted just five passes more than 10 yards in the air, but he completed three of them for 102 yards and two touchdowns, and one of the incompletions was a great throw that was dropped. He also finished with a +2.6 rushing grade, thanks to 51 yards on nine attempts and a touchdown. He forced two missed tackles, and also had a 53-yard touchdown run called that was called back. Overall it was his highest graded game of the year, and if he continues this kind of play, the Seahawks could be very hard to beat.

– What a day it was for the pair of DE Michael Bennett (+7.8) and DE Frank Clark (+5.0). Bennett had an off week last week, and responded with a huge game yesterday, finishing as the game’s highest graded player. He had three big run stops and was seemingly involved in every rushing attempt the Vikings ran. He also finished with a sack, a hit and four hurries when rushing the passer. Clark had a monster pass rushing game, as his entire +5.0 grade was from his pass rush. He finished with two sacks, two hits, two hurries and two batted passes. It was the rookie’s best game in what has been an up-and-down season.

– The Seahawks’ offense definitely made an effort to get the ball into rookie WR Tyler Lockett’s (+3.1) hands more often, and he did not disappoint. Lockett saw seven targets, the most he’s seen in a game all season, and he caught all seven for 90 yards and his highest grade of the season. But it was the different ways he did it that made it more impressive. He forced missed tackles on screen passes, he beat his coverage off the line and made plays downfield. He also returned the only kickoff he saw for 47 yards. After a slow start to the season, Lockett has now been targeted 15 times in three games, and caught 14 of them for 176 yards, two touchdowns and five missed tackles forced. That’s a good sign for an offense that has shown the need for a playmaker at times during the season.

Bryson has been an analyst at Pro Football Focus since 2014, and has also been a contributor to 120 Sports. Follow @PFF_Bryson

SkolBro

You mean the refs destroyed the vikings!
Skol! #realchampions!

Fried Toast

As a Seahawk fan, I was railing against the refs probably almost as much as you Vikings fans were. If we win, I want it to be a clean win. I don’t want a gift from the refs.

That being said, the Vikings never were in this game regardless of what the refs did. If you watched the entire game, you would be able to honestly say that the Vikes are #notchampions. Your head coach even said so in his post-game conference.

Steven Macks

As a Vikings fan, I agree with this. I’m not sure if we were down by 7 or 14 when the first egregious flag was thrown (Unnecessary Roughness on Exum followed by Unnecessary Roughness on Robison), but the game was pretty much decided by that point.

AZdove

It was a bad call. However, if you look at it and watch again, there was a sack and then a whistle. Play was over. Robison shouldn’t have cared it Russell got up and ran, he couldn’t have not heard the whistle if I heard it on tv.

Steven Macks

I can’t argue with that, but if they’re going to call roughing on Robison they have to call an offsetting penalty on Wilson (roughing or delay of game). Or they could be consistent and flag defenders that continue to hit running backs and push them back five to ten yards three seconds after the whistle.

AZdove

Wel we all know they protect the QB and give them extra calls.

nursecarmen

Russell should have a had a delay of game penalty then also. He ran to the end zone after the whistle was blown. Quite likely that neither of them heard it.

AZdove

I believe since both after the play though they wouldn’t have offset but simply netted against each other.

Who knows? My guess would be be was called for after the whistle and the ref then didn’t even see Russ run.

Thinkaboutit

They let it get to them, you’ve gta be more resilient than that

Sheamus

The refs held AP to 18 yards?

http://www.antmayphoto.com Ant

Ha ha ha, Vikings get beat by 31 and it was only the refs.

TBarnes

This game was never even close. But by all means blame the refs.

Craig W

You are not a Vikings fan. Please stop with your idiotic posts. We got screwed by the refs a few times, but without those calls it wouldn’t been 30-7 maybe?

JudoPrince

I’m not a Vikings fan and yes the Seahawks were the better team….but I saw some of the worst calls of the season for any team go against Minn. I was lost for words on a few of those plays; especially the calls on 3rd down which extended drives and lead to touchdowns. Very disturbing.

Fried Toast

Seahawks fan and I agree 100%! Absolutely ridiculous calls.

enai D

For the 2nd time in two weeks, the terrible officiating was NOT the reason we got destroyed. An inability to play competent football against teams that are not complete donuts is the reason we got destroyed.

Hammertyme

There were some bad calls both ways, as I remember we had a 53 yard TD run called back on a completely bogus call. Didn’t matter, we just scored again on the next play, but still the biggest penalty of the game.

Seattlefan80

STFU man typical vikings fan always bitching. Seahawks should be charged with domestic assault against this soft bitch made football team.

Tim-o-thy

Teddy needs a offensive line and a wide out then i’ll judge what he is. Hes a young qb thats clearly under siege.

Izach

Eh I agree Teddy needs help but even in games where he’s gotten good performances from WRs RBs and OL, he’s been basically average, improving those positions will basically just stop the bad performances it won’t make “him” better. But that said all TB needs to be is average with AP having a good game they can be fine, if Teddy could throw better deep balls the play action would be there almost every game.

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